Young Sicilian Producer Revitalizes Ancient Groves with Innovation

Summary

Tenute Caracci in Sicily, run by Mirko Caracci, is a fam­ily farm pro­duc­ing high-qual­ity olive oil from cen­turies-old trees, adapt­ing to cli­mate change chal­lenges with a sci­en­tific approach. The far­m’s focus on the Nocellara del Belice vari­ety has earned them inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion, show­cas­ing the suc­cess of their sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion meth­ods and inno­v­a­tive strate­gies.

A younger gen­er­a­tion of farm­ers in south­ern Sicily is adding sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy and inno­va­tion to a fam­ily her­itage rooted in olive grow­ing and wine­mak­ing, with groves that include cen­turies-old trees, some even 500 years old.

Nestled in Partanna on the gen­tle slopes north of Selinunte, Tenute Caracci has emerged as a source of some of Italy’s finest olive oils and a pio­neer in adapt­ing to the chal­lenges posed by cli­mate change.

Milling a fruity extra vir­gin olive oil from the renowned Nocellara del Belice olives, the farm secured a Gold Award at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“Nocellara is an extra­or­di­nary olive with remark­able aro­mas and a dual atti­tude, both for olive oil and for table olives,” Mirko Caracci, owner of Tenute Caracci, told Olive Oil Times.

The vari­ety is deeply rooted in the Valle del Belice, a ter­ri­tory whose olive oils are pro­tected under the European Union’s Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) sys­tem.

“When milled, Nocellara del Belice pro­duces an olive oil with gen­er­ally lower polyphe­nols com­pared to other vari­eties, but with a much richer aro­matic pro­file,” Caracci explained.

“Table olive pro­duc­ers in our ter­ri­tory fur­ther enhance it through dif­fer­ent pro­cess­ing meth­ods, espe­cially the Castelvetrano method, which makes the fruit sweet and appeal­ing for an aper­i­tivo,” he added.

At 34, Caracci rep­re­sents the third gen­er­a­tion of his fam­ily and has intro­duced a more sci­en­tific approach to farm­ing activ­i­ties orig­i­nally started by his grand­fa­ther. His back­ground in oenol­ogy has helped steer the farm toward inte­grated agri­cul­ture and a more sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion model.

“Our farm has a long his­tory. At the begin­ning, the focus was almost entirely on grapes for local winer­ies. Then came olives and olive oil,” Caracci recalled.

“With that, small local sales started, going door to door when a neigh­bor ran out of olive oil or a friend asked for some because he knew ours was bet­ter. That is exactly how it all began,” he added.

Caracci’s father, Giuseppe, ini­tially sold the farm’s olive oil in large con­tain­ers, mostly ten- to 20-liter tin cans.

“Then we moved to smaller tins and also launched our bag-in-box, which was truly a niche of ours and is now grow­ing larger and larger,” Caracci said.

“Everyone is using it now because it is con­ve­nient, much more prac­ti­cal than tins and involves no waste. With bag-in-box, pour­ing olive oil is much eas­ier and extremely handy,” he added.

One of the most press­ing chal­lenges for the new gen­er­a­tion at the farm is the impact of cli­mate change on the ter­ri­tory.

“Just think that in the last five or six years we have even started grow­ing avo­ca­dos. That says a lot about how a chang­ing cli­mate is impact­ing agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion,” Caracci said, not­ing how ris­ing tem­per­a­tures are push­ing farm­ers across Sicily to exper­i­ment with new crops.

In the heart of the Mediterranean Basin cli­mate hotspot, Sicily is par­tic­u­larly exposed to ris­ing sur­face tem­per­a­tures and extreme weather events.

“Climate change is real, we feel it. If the sea­son is very dry, with a lot of sun and drought, even the highly resilient olive tree goes into stress,” Caracci said.

“When that hap­pens, it stops send­ing nutri­ents to the fruit. Instead, it starts pulling nutri­ents out of the fruit and the leaves. In such cases, olives can­not accu­mu­late the microele­ments and com­pounds needed to give qual­ity to the oil,” he added.

In recent years, a severe drought has affected the entire island, sig­nif­i­cantly impact­ing olive har­vests and pro­duc­tion.

“On top of the drought, it was extremely hot. In August, you could see olive trees with wrin­kled leaves and olives with wrin­kled skins, even though they were already two or three cen­time­ters wide. It really breaks your heart to see that,” Caracci recalled.

Although night­time can bring lower tem­per­a­tures and some humid­ity, the long hours of day­light dur­ing dry and hot sum­mers take a last­ing toll on the trees.

“The stress keeps build­ing up. You never really return to bal­ance, and there is no recov­ery phase,” Caracci said. ​“In agri­cul­ture, plants under light stress pro­duce higher qual­ity fruit, but the stress must be light, not exces­sive.”

In this con­text, irri­ga­tion has become the first line of defense. ​“It is an adap­ta­tion to cli­mate change,” Caracci said.

Today, 90 per­cent of Tenute Caracci’s farm­land is irri­gated, includ­ing all olive groves, which are home to about 5,000 olive trees.

“A few years ago, thanks to a Sicilian Region Rural Development Program funded by the E.U., we set up weather sta­tions. From there, we can mon­i­tor humid­ity, leaf wet­ness, rain­fall and other para­me­ters very accu­rately,” Caracci explained.

Soil mois­ture is also mon­i­tored by col­lect­ing sam­ples from sev­eral areas around each tree.

“Once cer­tain dry­ness thresh­olds are crossed, we irri­gate. We run cycles of five or six hours. We do not overdo it because oth­er­wise the water per­co­lates too quickly and is wasted,” Caracci said.

In recent years, sev­eral grow­ers in the Valle del Belice have begun spray­ing olive trees with kaolin clay, a fine white min­eral.

“It forms a whitish film that par­tially reflects sun­light and low­ers the tem­per­a­ture of both leaves and olives. We use it as well because it helps mit­i­gate the impact of the heat,” Caracci noted.

A nat­ural advan­tage against cli­mate stress comes from the groves’ loca­tion, set between 300 and 400 meters above sea level.

This ele­va­tion brings gen­tle winds and slightly cooler air, reduc­ing expo­sure to the most extreme con­di­tions.

Olive fruit fly infes­ta­tions are man­aged through traps, includ­ing tra­di­tional meth­ods passed down through gen­er­a­tions.

“I learned this from my grand­fa­ther. A plas­tic bot­tle was sealed at the top and had four small holes around the neck, just wide enough for the fly to enter and not get out,” Caracci recalled.

“By the end of the sea­son, we would find a thick layer of flies and other insects at the bot­tom. It helps a lot. If you want an old approach, this is one that works and should be remem­bered,” he added.

“If you con­trol the fly, you have already done 80 per­cent of the work. With traps, you mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and then decide how to pro­ceed,” Caracci said.

“Ten to fif­teen years ago, treat­ments were done on a cal­en­dar basis. Today, instead, we rely on tar­geted treat­ments for spe­cific threats,” he added.

The results of these efforts are reflected in the inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion Tenute Caracci’s olive oils have earned.

“When the first medal in New York arrived, it was an incred­i­ble joy. It meant that even on the other side of the world they were appre­ci­at­ing Nocellara del Belice,” Caracci said.

“They know olive oil, they under­stand extra vir­gin olive oil, and they rec­og­nized its qual­ity. The sec­ond medal con­firmed that we had taken the right direc­tion,” he con­cluded.